Navy's Next-generation Submarine Program Faces Alarming Delay To 2040

The Navy’s next-generation onslaught submarine won’t beryllium a reality for astatine slightest 15 years, according to a caller report.

The Navy’s SSN(X) was primitively slated to participate accumulation successful 2031. That timeline has since slipped – to 2035 and now to 2040, owed to escalating costs and fund constraints.

The Navy requested $623 cardinal successful its FY 2026 fund to beforehand nan program.

This caller people is expected to stress stealth, intelligence gathering, larger torpedo payloads and precocious connectivity pinch unmanned undersea systems.

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Only 2 shipyards successful nan U.S. tin build nuclear-powered submarines for illustration this USS Minnesota, a Virginia-class accelerated onslaught submarine. (Colin Murty-Pool/Getty Images)

The study urges lawmakers to see whether nan hold could frighten U.S. undersea power and nan Navy’s expertise to behaviour captious missions.

At astir 10,000 tons, nan SSN(X) is projected to costs betwixt $6.7 cardinal and $8 cardinal per vessel, making it importantly much costly than nan Virginia‑class subs it’s intended to replace.

Virginia‑class boats costs astir $4 cardinal each and person been successful work since 1998. The Navy typically procures 2 per year, but existent accumulation has slowed to conscionable 1.2–1.4 subs annually, resulting successful a increasing backlog of funded but unconstructed boats.

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Virginia‑class boats costs astir $4 cardinal each and person been successful work since 1998. (Colin Murty-Pool/Getty Images)

For FY 2025, nan Navy requested only 1 Virginia‑class submarine owed to accumulation constraints. Only 2 U.S. shipyards – Electric Boat and Newport News – are equipped to build nuclear-powered submarines.

The report besides encourages lawmakers to analyse nan effect of deferring accumulation connected nan business guidelines and whether shifting from highly enriched uranium reactors to low-enriched uranium mightiness connection costs aliases information advantages.

Meanwhile, nan Navy intends to turn its fleet from 296 to 381 ships successful nan coming decades – but experts pass that awesome business description would beryllium required to scope those targets.

"We request much ships delivered connected clip and connected budget, and we are challenged successful some arenas," said Brett A. Seidle, acting adjunct caput of nan Navy for research, improvement and acquisition, during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "Costs are rising faster than inflation, and schedules connected aggregate programs are delayed 1 to 3 years."

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Experts person been sounding nan siren connected nan backlogged submarine accumulation process. (U.S. Navy photograph by Ray Narimatsu/Released)

Despite astir doubling its shipbuilding fund complete nan past 2 decades, nan Navy has consistently fallen short of its ship-count goals. The Government Accountability Office noted that Navy shipbuilding programs and yards are efficaciously operating successful a "perpetual authorities of triage."

Last month, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D‑Conn., nan apical Democrat connected nan Appropriations Committee, pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth connected his scheme to grow shipbuilding capacity.

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"I want your plan. Can we get that successful penning and connected paper? Because we don’t person thing coming – zip, nada," she said.

"We person nan details," Hegseth responded, "and we will supply them."